Quartet for the End of Time (10 page)

It had been a relief because of that when they first climbed onto the train to take his shoes and socks off and prop his feet up on his rucksack, next to his father's feet, which had also been put out to air. He laid his head on the rolled-up blanket he'd carried, because it was too hot to roll it out. His father was propped up by his own rolled-up blanket and, the way he lay, his Adam's apple stood up straight like the point of a knife in his throat. He let out a low whistle. If this ain't living, he said. Chet laughed, and Jim nodded, but his companion, a short brown-skinned man, who looked to be a Mexican, said, And what if it ain't?

Don't mind him, Jim said. He's still sore over losing three dollars to an Indian.

Well, now, what did he do that for? Douglas's father asked.

Jim shrugged his big shoulders and the Mexican swore under his breath. He's lucky he didn't lose more, Jim said. Them Injuns get mean when they want something. They're liable just to take it right out from under you most times, give 'em half a chance. Whole world's getting like that, more or less. Real savage-like.

Yes, that's so, Jim continued. No one pays any mind to the next man now. Take tonight, for example, when we passed 'round those beans and yer missus's bread,'til there wasn't any one of us got more nor less than the other. If everyone did like we did—shared things out, civilizedlike—I figure there wouldn't be no need of getting robbed by Indians. Nor stealing from them neither.

Well, that sure is a pretty thought, Douglas's father said. Don't you like that, Chet? I sure am liking to imagine ol' Duke spooning me out just as much bread and molasses as he sits down to each night. Chet laughed, then his father did, too. Jim stayed quiet; his feelings were hurt.

But see, now, that's dreaming, Douglas's father said after he and Chet were done laughing. Things just ain't like that, nor will they be, and if
you start believing they are, or wishing too hard on it, you're liable to get a whole lot more'n three dollars stole.

Just then the train gave a lurch and began to roll slowly. The moon followed. Douglas's father settled back again, his head propped on his bedroll. Yessir, he said. We're on our way now. Then everyone was quiet for a time, just appreciating the steady racket of the wheels on the tracks as the train picked up speed.

Yessir, Douglas's father said, as though speaking to no one now. If you don't go ahead and take what's yours, sooner or later you'll be left with nothing at all. Might as well, he said—and now he gestured toward the open cargo doors, where outside the moon trailed heavily overhead—be nothing more'n—a—a wild animal, out there. All alone, scrambling t' just—

But he didn't have a chance to finish his thought.

What's that? Jim said. What did you say? He was leaning forward now, his eyes dark suddenly, and mean. Say it again, he said.

What again? Douglas's father said.

Jim's eyes flashed.
You
know, he said. Who you calling a—

Well—hold on, Douglas's father said. Hold on. Nobody's called nobody nothing yet, so far as I can tell.

Well, Jim said—his voice was uneasy. It shore sounded like somebody did.

Awww … come on, now, Chet said, raising himself on an elbow to look at the two men. We're all right.

Yeah, Douglas's father agreed—after a moment in which it seemed he might say more. We're all right. We're
civilized
, ain't we?

Uncertain whether he was being made fun of or not, Jim didn't say anything for a while, but then he and Douglas's father went back to talking, pleasantly enough, and from time to time Chet's voice joined in—but never the deep growl of the man who had got himself robbed by an Indian. Jim didn't talk like anyone Douglas had ever known before, and he tried to imagine what it would be like to be from a place—like California—where he had never been. To not even know a place like Junction City, if you didn't want to, and didn't happen to pass
through it one day. It was strange to think about. About how many people there were all over the world who had never been to or even heard much of anything about Junction City. Who didn't know what it was like, or even think to imagine what it was like—to be there, where he was just now: somewhere in between Junction City and Topeka and on his way to Kansas City, then beyond. All the way to Hoover's door, Douglas's father had said—in order to claim what, by rights, was already theirs.

Did that make them—Douglas wondered—civilized? Was it that?
Knowing
what was yours by right? Having a paper to prove it? Rather than just … taking things, like a wild animal or an Indian?

He figured that was probably right. Though just at that moment he thought it might be nice, after all, to be an animal instead—a mountain lion or a grizzly. To never be afraid of anything at all, except maybe fire; to never feel lonely because there was no open space in your heart for anything at all, let alone loneliness, to get in. The heart of a mountain lion, he thought, would be as solid as that. Their brains, too—quick and hard. All the different parts fit together inside like the cars on a train; thoughts like light streaming in through a semi-open door.

As he drifted to sleep, Douglas heard his father's voice rise and fall alongside Jim's—until at last there was nothing to tell them apart, the familiar and the strange—and he hardly noticed when even the familiar dropped away, and only Jim's voice remained.

By God, said the voice,
I was there
. Saw it
with my own eyes.
When General Pershing knelt to kiss the sword Napoleon himself had carried all through the Battle of Marengo. Then Stanton—he knelt, too. Said: Here we are. And we
were.
Staying in those crummy barracks outside town. Getting eaten alive by the descendants of lice who'd once eaten Napoleon's men. I considered it a privilege. Especially for those of us, like myself, who, before we shipped, had never even fired a gun. Well, if we didn't whip them anyway. There was something in us—in all of us. Some instinct for survival—for freedom above all—which did us proud. And it was that, mark me, more than any general or any gun, that won
us the war. But now—the voice paused. The train measured four long beats. Nobody remembers any of that now.

Douglas's father and Chet had been asleep for some time, and now Douglas suspected that the Mexican was sleeping, too. Everyone in the whole world was sleeping—except Douglas and Jim. But then, he could not even be certain of that; perhaps he himself was not fully awake, and Jim neither. Perhaps he had already, as he had for some time suspected, ceased to be able to properly discern where Jim's reminiscences of the Great War left off and his own dreams began, and before long, despite his best efforts, there was little use in attempting to make any distinction at all; the two combined, and were one. And that was how, a few moments later, Douglas arrived, along with his father and Chet, the Duke, the Mexican, and Jim, at Hoover's doorstep, to be greeted by a crowd of French soldiers, who shouted and cheered and stamped their feet, and sang “Roses of Picardy” in rich tenor voices, which sounded just like his father's had always sounded, after returning at the end of the day from the field, back home.

—

W
HEN HIS FATHER ROUSED HIM IN THE EARLY MORNING
,
IT MUST HAVE
been from a very deep sleep. For some time he did not know where he was. The sun had already risen, but it seemed to be coming from the wrong direction. There was no time to dwell on the problem, however. His father had already rolled up his blanket and was now pulling on his boots.

Come on, now, son, he said. Before the ticket collectors come.

Douglas knew what that meant. He woke up all the way, and sure enough, then, knew where he was. He gathered his blanket and reached for his shoes. His feet were swollen, though, and so sore that he had trouble, only managing to get the left shoe on before he was forced to hop from the train.

There was a heavy fog, and the dew was very wet on the grass as if it had rained, but still Douglas could see where the sun had begun to burn
its way through the heavy cloud cover, lighting the far edges of the landscape. All that blankness, interrupted only by the rubble of the train yard. Metal spikes and rusted barrels littered the grounds everywhere Douglas looked. Half of a disassembled train car—in which, as Douglas approached, it soon became apparent one or more persons had taken up residence—rose at an oblique angle. A line of laundry had been slung in a homely fashion from its tipped-up end to an adjacent post. It was difficult to imagine how anyone could have slept in it any other way than standing up. A dog tied to a post outside looked up at Douglas as he passed, and then away. He looked lonely and bored, like he hadn't seen anyone who mattered to him in a long time.

So this—Douglas thought—is Kansas City? This, too, was difficult to imagine. It seemed that instead of getting nearer to anything, they had, in fact, only gotten much farther away. That, indeed, they had arrived at the very ends of the earth, and in another moment, if they took a few steps in any of the directions that now lay open to them, they would find the earth itself preparing to give way, dropping off at the same startling angle with which the abandoned train car dropped from its axle to the bare ground below. But Douglas did not have long to contemplate this possibility, or its consequences. His father was moving quickly— once more, Douglas had to double-step to keep up. And the earth did not give way. It remained so solid beneath them that he winced as his damaged feet hit it with every step.

Finally, they came to a road with a long row of low houses strung along it. Douglas's heart lifted at the sight. An illegible sign swung limply on the door of one of them, which Jim now entered. The Mexican—then Chet and his father—followed. Douglas, the last to enter, closed the door behind him so that the sign banged against it, startling him.

Inside, a low light burned, only partially illuminating the back wall and leaving the rest of the place as full of shadows as the early morning had been. By that time, though at most only half an hour had passed, the sun had managed to burn its way through nearly all of the fog and had risen perpendicular to the low clouds. Next to that sudden, persuasive
brightness, they were revealed to be no more than thin phantoms. Soon the inside of the tavern began to appear in just this way. Objects emerged against the dark background that had, until then, absorbed them. There were six stools at the bar. And a heavyset barman—studying them curiously from beneath a low brow.

Both Douglas's father and Chet chose one of the stools at the bar, then Jim sat next to Chet and the Mexican next to Jim. Douglas did not sit, but only stood in the space between the seat where his father sat and the next, until his father turned and indicated that he should sit down, too. Soon they all had a plate of potatoes in front of them, and then whiskey appeared, and every man hollered and raised his glass above his head before he drank, and then the barman laid down another, and said it was on the house.

Don't take much to guess where you're headed, he said. I hope you get your bonus.

Glasses were raised once more and drained, and Douglas ate solemnly all the while and felt the warmth and the weight of the food settle slowly within him. But before long his father turned and said, Now we'll have to be looking into a decent pair of shoes for the boy. His stomach felt cold again all of a sudden when he heard that, though he didn't know why. His father had turned back to the barman and now he consulted him about the various establishments in town and what the likelihood of their being open for business was, and the barman shook his head and said that there wasn't any likelihood at all, it being a Sunday, and then his father said he would see what he could do. It being the Lord's day, he said, after all, maybe something will work out all right. He got up, but told Douglas to stay where he was, and Douglas nodded, grateful to be allowed to stay in the bar. Then his father went out, and Chet with him, and that left just Douglas with Jim and the Mexican. The barman placed a tall glass of white milk in front of Douglas. At first he didn't know if he was intended to take it—or, if he was intended to take it, if he was intended to pay. He didn't have any money. On account of this, Douglas just looked at the milk where it had been placed before him, until finally the barman laughed and said,
Don't just gape at it, son! And then he was sure he was intended to drink it and he wouldn't be expected to pay, and so he did, and it was very white and cold.

It seemed a long time to wait before his father and Chet returned. But then they did and Chet slammed down a note on the table, and his father said to Douglas, Come on, now, we've got some distance to cover yet. The barman raised one heavy brow like whatever it was that Chet had put before him was a great deal more or a great deal less than what he'd expected. Chet stood still, his feet spread and his head back, so that his Adam's apple cocked itself like a gun in his throat, and with how tall he was, despite his thinness, he cut an impressive figure. Jim and the Mexican stared dimly from their corner of the bar. It was hard to make out their expressions. Jim started to speak, but before he could get a word out, Douglas's father cut him off, saying, We'll be seeing you boys. Then he was out the door, following Chet, and neither one looked behind to see that Douglas had followed, but he did. And so, once again, they were out on the street, with the sun high in the sky now, and only a few scattered clouds—so thin it appeared that a man might, with a single breath, have blown them away.

I
T WAS THEIR LUCK THAT
, by the time they arrived back at the rail yard, a freight train was already loaded, ready to depart. They scrambled into the first empty car they found, and only then did they turn and look behind them. There was nothing there to see but spools of rusted wire, discarded engine parts, and, of course, the abandoned train car, propped at its incongruous angle, still pointing to the sky.